


Honey, I’m Home

by Curator



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, trigger warning: adultery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: When a mission takes less time than expected, B’Elanna Torres decides to surprise her husband by coming home early.(You’re a smart reader. You know that’s not going to go well.)
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Comments: 40
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Hard-core P/Ters may want to skip this one.

It hadn’t been easy to convince her captain to delay filing the mission report, but he’d agreed when B’Elanna explained she wanted to surprise her husband by being home when Tom walked in the front door after work. 

B’Elanna envisioned Tom’s confusion-turned-happiness and Miral’s smile as the third grader would give one of her fierce hugs, saying, “Mom, I love when you’re here.”

Three weeks away, one week home was a grueling schedule, but B’Elanna was chief engineer on the _USS Humbolt_ and she couldn’t imagine a better ship. Warp, transwarp, and slipstream drives, plus an impulse engine so finely tuned it practically sang arias.

Tom had bounced around since _Voyager_ got home, first piloting for the Federation diplomatic corps, then trying to make it as a holonovel author. He’d taken an office job at Starfleet Command two years ago and B’Elanna expected him to hate it, but when a helm position came open on the _Humbolt_ , Tom said he preferred the insights of working at headquarters.

B’Elanna set her duffel bag by their apartment door and slipped off her boots. A quick sonic shower, she told herself, then she would settle in at home. Tom and Miral weren’t due back for a few hours, and B’Elanna intended to enjoy the quiet.

She padded across the hardwood floor, her Starfleet socks muffling her footsteps.

The door to her and Tom’s bedroom was open and B’Elanna could see the foot of their bed.

And, as she moved closer, her husband’s feet, calves, thighs, rear end — and a smooth, bare leg hooked over his waist.

B’Elanna froze just outside the doorway. 

Tom was curled on his side, his breathing even and deep. 

The leg that claimed his midsection was pale and slim with a narrow foot. Its owner was hidden by Tom’s shoulder and torso.

The mid-afternoon sun streamed in through the bedroom windows and the television pushed into a corner flickered with images and B’Elanna’s fingernails dug into her palms.

A chronometer beeped. B’Elanna jumped, then crouched.

Tom rubbed his eyes.

The woman groaned.

“Time to go back to work.” Tom kissed the forehead B’Elanna couldn’t see. “And you’re messy.”

“Entirely your fault,” the woman said.

In the Maquis, B’Elanna once set a bomb to blow up a Cardassian strategy session. But B’Elanna hadn’t run fast enough and she’d been caught in the blast, thrown forward with air pushed from her lungs, deafened except for a ringing in her ears. 

She felt the same way upon hearing the woman’s voice. 

B’Elanna would know that voice anywhere. 

_ Commander Chakotay thinks very highly of you. He's recommended you for chief engineer. _

“My fault?” Tom chuckled.

“Yes, but, in fairness, I rescind the ‘entirely.’” The woman stretched her arm around Tom’s neck and pulled him close. Her leg tightened on his waist.

B’Elanna’s stomachs tumbled and her skin pricked in goosebumps.

The chronometer beeped more insistently.

Tom kissed the woman again, silenced the alarm, then rolled off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. B’Elanna heard the sonic shower. The woman secured the flat sheet between her legs, then stripped the bed to the mattress, carrying everything to the bathroom.

B’Elanna lay on the floor, the hardwood cool on her cheek.

Giggles drifted over the sound of the shower cycle as it cleaned the people, and presumably the sheets, too, so everything would be dry and odorless. 

B’Elanna lunged for her duffel bag and boots, then escaped to Miral’s bedroom. From Miral’s closet, she pressed her ear to the wall that separated the two rooms.

The shower stopped.

“I was thinking we could have lunch together on Tuesday. My office?” the woman said. 

“No, my office.”

B’Elanna could hear the smile in Tom’s voice.

“Your office?”

B’Elanna swore she could hear a hand on a hip.

“Yeah.” There was a deep, rumbling laugh. “The carpet is more plush.”

“Oooh, tempting offer,” the woman said. “I’ll take it since your bed is spoken for next week.”

B’Elanna barely breathed for fear of making a sound.

“Hey, you didn’t consult with me before letting your mother stay with you for half the year.”

“My mistake.” The woman’s voice was a teasing purr. “The cruelty of Indiana winters on an older person’s body clearly should take second place to your convenience.”

“Have I told you how I feel about your sarcasm?”

“You enjoy it?”

“I tolerate it.” 

Their boots clicked against the floor as they made their way to the front door.

“Because?”

“Because I love you.”

The woman’s low hum was of delight and contentment. “I love you, too.”

The door closed behind them. 

B’Elanna sunk to the floor of the closet. Hot tears dripped and she wiped her nose with her sleeve.

***

“Have you seen Admiral Janeway lately?” B’Elanna’s fork was suspended over her dinner. Miral had finished updating her parents on third grade gossip and Tom had bragged about Miral’s recent test scores.

“Admiral Janeway?” Tom’s nose crinkled. “You know I see her a few times a week. She likes to have lunch and catch up.”

B’Elanna stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork. “What exactly does that mean, ‘catch up’?”

Tom shrugged. “She tells me about her day. I tell her about my day. She asks how you’re doing, about Miral, about Harry.”

“Oh, Mom!” Miral wriggled and grinned. “I told Uncle Harry about my calculus grade and he said it was good for two Kal-Toh lessons when he next visits.”

“Was Harry here?” B’Elanna tried to keep her voice level, not too high. 

Miral shook her head. “Dad talked to him on subspace.”

“You know I would tell you if Harry was here.” Tom’s mouth was full. 

B’Elanna lay down her fork. “I guess, sometimes, I wonder what happens when I’m on the _Humbolt_.”

“We miss you.” Tom swallowed his food. “But you’ve got a great posting and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

***

B’Elanna was propped on pillows as she read her padd in bed that night. A cup of tea had gone cold on her nightstand. Tom slipped under the blanket and nuzzled B’Elanna’s shoulder. 

“It’s always nicer when you’re home,” he said. 

She put down her padd. “Why do you think Admiral Janeway hasn’t gotten married? I haven’t even heard of her dating anyone since we got home.”

Tom sat up. “That was a strange change of topic.”

“Humor me.”

“All right.” Tom crossed his legs. “I’m not sure, though. She doesn’t talk much about her personal life.”

B’Elanna’s eyes narrowed. She pulled the cup from her nightstand and brought it to her closed lips. Tea dribbled down B’Elanna’s chin onto her pyjamas and the bedding. She leaped up. 

“Oh!” B’Elanna brushed tea droplets from her clothing onto the bed. “Would you mind changing the sheets, Tom? I need to dry off in the bathroom.”

Tom was already up and pulling at the bedding. “No problem. I’m just glad your tea wasn’t hot.”

When B’Elanna got back, she lifted a corner of the blanket. The fitted sheet on Tom’s bed on _Voyager_ and then their marital bed always had crisp, Starfleet-regulation, triangular corners. B’Elanna had checked before Tom and Miral came home and took note of the familiar, clean lines.

But the fitted sheet B’Elanna saw was bunched up, tucked in with a mass of wrinkles.

B’Elanna couldn’t feel her arms or legs as she climbed under the blanket. When Tom’s hand found her thigh, B’Elanna scooted away and turned her back to him.

“I’m really tired, Tom. I’m just going to go to sleep.”


	2. Chapter 2

The dinner had been awkward. B’Elanna went to the woman’s office late in the day and asked her to come over for the meal.

“We should spend some time together, Admiral,” B’Elanna had insisted. “It has to have been at least a year since you came to the apartment.”

When they walked in, the woman had motioned toward a wall in the living room. “What happened to Tom’s television set?”

The television had been in the bedroom for the last eight months. 

“I’m impressed you remember.” B’Elanna had fought to keep her arms at her sides, not crossed. “We moved it to the bedroom. Have you ever seen the bedroom? The sunset is really pretty through the windows this time of day.”

“I believe you,” the woman had said, shaking her head. “This is truly a lovely apartment. I’m so proud of you, B’Elanna, and all that you’ve accomplished.”

“So, you do or you don’t want to see the bedroom?” B’Elanna had pressed her fingers against her trousers so her hands wouldn’t curl into fists.

“Your choice.” The woman had settled on the couch. “As long as you’re cooking and not me, I’m delighted to do whatever you ask.”

B’Elanna had bit back the reply on the tip of her tongue and, instead, began to replicate appetizers. 

That night, after their guest went home, Tom sat in front of his television set and B’Elanna read in bed, the blanket over her legs. The words blurred. Then, beat down by an evening of small talk, evasions, and masterful lies, B’Elanna exploded.

“How long have you been fucking her, Tom?”

Tom’s head jerked up. “What?”

He grabbed the remote to turn off the television.

“Leave it on,” B’Elanna growled. “I don’t want Miral to hear this.”

The remote clattered to the table and Tom stood in front of B’Elanna. Breath puffed from her nostrils, but his shoulders were relaxed, his face calm.

“B’Elanna,” he took her hand, “I want you to know I love you.”

She snatched her hand away. “Bullshit. I know about you and her. I came home early yesterday.”

Tom’s forehead creased. “How is that possible? Headquarters didn’t log the mission report until 1900 hours.”

B’Elanna whipped the blanket off and began to pace the floor. “Mission report? _Mission report?_ That’s what you’re going to focus on?”

Tom shook his head. “You’re right. Look, I’m sorry you found out that way, B’Elanna. I’m sorry you found out at all. We never intended —”

“We?! ‘We’ is supposed to be you and me, Tom. Not you and that … that —”

“Don’t blame her.” Tom’s back stiffened. “She cares about you and always has.”

B’Elanna’s hands covered her mouth, muffling her scream.

Tom’s fingers fluttered as if he wanted to reach for B’Elanna but knew better. “Let me help you understand. All right?”

B’Elanna hugged herself as Tom spoke. 

He told her about a cadet who met a lieutenant at a nightclub in France. The lieutenant had a guy she’d been seeing, but it was nothing serious. She didn’t want anything serious. 

But she was up for some fun.

The next morning, the lieutenant noticed a piloting award propped on the desk in the cadet’s small bedroom. 

“Your last name is Paris?” She’d clutched his bedsheet to her chest, her auburn hair cascading over her shoulders. “You’re Owen Paris’ son?”

The cadet nodded and the lieutenant burst out laughing. 

“Well,” she had purred as the bedsheet fluttered from her fingers, “I guess you’re not a kid anymore.”

They would get together on starbases, planet-side, even on each other’s ships when the timing was right. She became a lieutenant commander, then a commander. He became an ensign, then a lieutenant. What began as physical became emotional as they shared thoughts, dreams, plans.

She still didn’t want anything serious.

He had an accident, he was drummed out of Starfleet, he joined the Maquis and was sent to prison.

She didn’t write, but she appeared one day like he had prayed she would when he pleaded with the God he didn’t believe in for the things he knew he didn’t deserve.

She was a captain and she knew the penal colony monitored their conversation, so she spoke more professionally than he’d ever heard.

Not that it was easy to focus on what she was saying when he was used to seeing her naked.

The first night on her ship, he chimed at her quarters. She granted him entry, but backed up as he stepped through the doors. 

“I’m engaged now,” she had said. “I can’t be unfaithful to my fiancé.”

“Engaged!” He had thrown his arms wide. “I thought you didn’t want anything serious.”

Her eyebrows had knitted. “Priorities change. You’ve been gone or in prison. Something serious with you would have been delightful, but that’s become out of the question.”

It was six months later on the other side of the galaxy when he had been cleared of a murder he didn’t commit that she rang his chime. He was her helmsman and he granted his captain entry to his quarters.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she had raved. “Fooling around with a married woman? Have you no sense of propriety?”

He’d looked away. “I was lonely.”

Time seemed to stretch. A second was an hour. Then his back slammed against the bulkhead and she yanked his head down to kiss him. His brain stuttered and raced to catch up. He unfastened his trousers.

When their uniforms were in pieces around them and her body was still quivering on the carpeted floor, she pushed herself to her hands and knees. “This will never happen again,” she had sworn. “Never, ever again.”

He’d grabbed her wrist. “You could lose the fiancé and marry me.”

She had turned her blue eyes to him and they were wet. “Ask me two years ago, would you?”

She told him she couldn’t be in a relationship with a member of her crew and he needed to find someone else. 

He tried to be interested in other women. Hell, he tried to be interested in Harry. 

But the captain and the helmsman fell into each other’s arms with a regularity that frightened both of them. Well, it frightened her.

“This is unacceptable,” she would fume, gathering pieces of her uniform. “This is against protocol, against my promise to my fiancé, and against the standards I set for myself as captain.”

His grin would be lazy and his body loose. “See you in a few days.”

“I’ll see you on the bridge at 0800,” she would snap. 

“No.” His arm would curl around her waist. “I’ll see _you_ in a few days.”

When he started dating the chief engineer, the captain offered to bow out. “It’s not serious,” he had murmured into her naked shoulder. “You know what that’s like.”

She’d rolled over and held him close.

After the helmsman served the captain’s thirty-day sentence in the brig, he went to her quarters. 

She had laid her book spine up on a chair. “I thought you would hate me.”

“I wanted to. But I couldn’t.” He had eyed the replicator where she recycled her engagement ring after her fiancé married someone else. “Duty first is who you are and I love every piece of you.”

Whether her tears were relief or disappointment, he wasn’t sure. 

When the helmsman married the chief engineer, the captain said that was it, there was no way he could cheat on his wife.

He had run his hand over his hair. “I love her. But I love you, too. Your ship and crew are your priorities and I understand that, even though I’m ready to start a family. We’ve never aroused suspicion before, even when we had to tell a few lies after warp ten. Why change things now?”

Her arms tightly crossed, she had whispered, “You’re _married_.”

“And you delete wives,” he had teased.

“That’s not funny.” Her arms had crossed even tighter. “The holodeck is one thing, but B’Elanna is a flesh and blood person and I would never want to hurt her. She’s an integral member of this crew and I consider her a friend.”

By this time, the helmsman had stepped so close to the captain that he could smell the coffee on her breath, see the quiver of her chin. He traced her lips with his fingertip. “And I consider you my best friend.”

“Chakotay is my best friend,” she had snapped. “Tuvok is my best friend.”

“Then what am I?” The helmsman had pulled her into his arms.

The captain had blinked rapidly. “The man I can’t have.”

“Yes,” he had breathed, his lips touching hers, “you can.”

And she did.

When the captain transitioned into the admiralty, their meetings fit into her busy schedule and allowed him to have it all — beloved wife, precious child, and someone who had been a part of his life for nearly his entire adulthood.

Tom finished his story sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands resting on his thighs. B’Elanna’s fists were so tight, her nails were close to drawing blood.

“Are you insane?” she hissed. “That’s not a love story, that’s a crime. You cheated on me during every phase of our relationship.”

“B’Elanna, don’t you love pancakes and potato salad? Engineering journals and romance novels?” Tom spoke as if he was explaining a difficult concept to a child. “It’s possible to love different things in different ways and neither love invalidates the other.”

“This discussion is about people, not things, Tom.” B’Elanna began to shake. “If you were truly comfortable with your choices, you would have told me from the start.”

Tom shook his head.

“That wasn't possible on _Voyager_. Once we got home, I took that piloting job and I figured it was over.” Tom held his hands out, palms up. “When it wasn’t over, I honestly thought you would never know and everyone could be happy.”

B’Elanna stared at her husband, unable to focus on his pleading eyes. Instead, her mind whirled through the Delta Quadrant — every time their shifts didn’t overlap, every time the captain didn’t check on a sudden problem in Engineering, and the one time B’Elanna’s code didn’t work and Tom stepped out of their quarters zipping up his jacket and insisting they visit sickbay even though B’Elanna knew her fatigue was a normal symptom of pregnancy.

Choking back the dinner she had barely eaten, B’Elanna strode to the closet and pulled her duffel bag from its shelf. She began to shove in clean uniforms and socks.

“I’m going to sleep in my quarters on the _Humbolt_.”

Tom stood behind her. “If I have to choose, I choose you, B’Elanna. I choose our family.”

She kept packing.


	3. Chapter 3

B’Elanna presented the plan to her captain.

He leaned back in his ready room chair, padd in hand. “I’m impressed. I didn’t think it was possible for these engines to be maintained in space. Utopia Planetia will miss us, but I want to implement your ideas as quickly as possible.”

She nodded crisply and turned to leave. 

“A moment of personal business, Ms. Torres?”

B’Elanna faced her captain again.

“Don’t you have a husband and child on Earth? Won’t you miss seeing them?”

“I intend to bring my daughter onboard, sir.” B’Elanna kept her posture straight. “My marriage is over.”

The captain frowned. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that, Ms. Torres. If you need any time off —”

“I’ll let you know, sir. For now, I’d like to work.”

“Understood,” the captain said. “Let me know if you need anything, particularly as your daughter adjusts to being onboard.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

B’Elanna hurried to her engines, then, when her shift was over, to her quarters. 

Her message light blinked.

She tapped for playback.

“B’Elanna.”

It was the woman, her eyes tense and her mouth a tight line. 

B’Elanna’s teeth gritted.

“I wanted to discuss this with you face to face, but it’s my understanding you won’t be back for three weeks and it seemed wrong to allow things that should have been said years ago to linger a moment longer.”

The woman leaned forward. 

“My failings shouldn’t be your problem, B’Elanna. They shouldn’t be your husband’s problem, they shouldn’t be your child’s problem, and they certainly shouldn’t end your marriage. I’m sorry. Dividing my mind between personal and professional became a habit and then dividing it further became a bad way to cope with emotions I should have kept to myself during our time in the Delta Quadrant … and later.”

The woman looked down, then back into the screen. 

“I don’t expect your forgiveness and I know I’ve destroyed our friendship. And I am enraged with myself for causing you pain. But, Tom loves you and he loves his life with you and Miral. I’ll do whatever you want, including reassignment as far away as you want me to be. I don’t like this part of myself, but it’s best to move forward with the honesty I lacked for far too long. I hope you’ll respond when you’re ready.”

The recording ended and B’Elanna’s hand jabbed forward to erase it, but the message was already deleted from her computer terminal and, as she investigated, from ship’s systems. 

She gripped the computer and keyed in requests for a seat in the third grade classroom onboard and for quarters with a room for a child. 

Approval came through within the hour, and B’Elanna sent Tom a text-only communique: _Keep the apartment. Keep the television and keep your damned girlfriend whose “apologies” are as unwelcome as they are useless. Miral will live with me and if you fight this, I’ll tell Starfleet Command about breaches in command protocol on_ Voyager _and misuse of headquarters offices for personal activities._

He replied quickly. _I love you, B’Elanna, and I love being Miral’s father. Can we talk one more time before you make your decisions?_

_ No, Tom. When we met, I thought you were a pig. I should have trusted my instincts. Enjoy wallowing in the mud. _

Weeks later, when Miral looked around her new room with stars through the viewport, she asked when she could see her father again.

The divorce agreement required the equivalent of a month every year, the minimum B’Elanna could legally obtain without charging Tom with lack of competency as a parent.

Eleven months passed and B’Elanna sent an ensign to drop Miral off. Tom did the same four weeks after that.

“How was it?” B’Elanna asked, her new commander’s pips shining on her collar.

Miral chattered about trips and holodeck games and flight maneuvers in a shuttle.

“Just the two of you?” B’Elanna’s chest constricted.

“Mostly,” Miral said. “But Dad moved into Admiral Janeway’s apartment, so I saw her, too. I stayed in her mother’s room and it had an old lady bedspread.”

B’Elanna didn’t want an answer to any of the questions in her head, so she chose the most innocuous. “What, exactly, is an old lady bedspread?”

Miral’s answer had something to do with handmade quilts, but B’Elanna nodded without really listening.

When B’Elanna was promoted to captain, headquarters flag officers were expected to attend the ceremony. 

On the stage, B’Elanna received her fourth pip and formal orders to lead an experimental vessel with quantum drive. She allowed herself a satisfied grin.

B’Elanna kept the grin plastered to her face even when her ex-husband embraced his daughter, the wedding ring on his finger a match for the one on a woman whose blue eyes shone as she sat in her alphabetical place between Admiral Hydryk and Admiral Jimenez.

It was a few weeks into her duties when B’Elanna’s ready room door chimed. 

“Come in.” Her gaze lifted from her computer screen to a lieutenant commander wringing his hands. “What is it?” 

“Captain Torres,” the officer said, “I know this may sound silly, but with our docking time anticipated to be ahead of schedule, I was wondering if you could delay filing our mission report. My spouse lives on Starbase 32 and I would love to surprise him by coming home early.”

B’Elanna’s eyes scrunched shut. 

“Captain?”

She took a deep breath. 

“Captain, I’m sorry if I bothered you.”

B’Elanna opened her eyes. “No bother. Is two hours enough of a delay? I’m always happy to help a member of my crew.”


End file.
